Maximal power.
Welcome back to Maximum Power, the Blake 7 podcast.
This week, we're looking in hope of deliverance.
Episode 12 of series A of Blake 7.
I'm Cy.
I'm James I'm Mark and I'm Pete.
So, we're here at episode 12 of Terry Nation's 1st series run of the show.
James, do you think he's beginning to run out of steam?
I think I began to run out of steam in episode 3 or four.
I think, yeah, like the only thing that's really saved this show from falling flat is the fact that they had a brilliant script editor pulling it all together.
And as the show goes further and further in, Now we've discussed this over the last few weeks, it gets more and more Chris Boucher, and that can only be a good thing, in my opinion.
Yeah, there's real feel here that the dialogue is taking a step up suddenly.
I think Chris Boucher has a very good eye on the characters all the way through the series and here he's really giving the dialogue a good brush up to make it extra snappy and really, really interesting.
Are we saying that he's sort of arrived like a sort of saviour for Blake 7 and has turned it into something that we all need to go down on one knee and worship?
That would be thematic.
He really delivered on the script.
So, Mark, coming into this episode, you're a new watcher of Blake 7.
How do you think the series has held up up to this and what are your faults on where Terry Nation has got to here?
Yeah, I feel like he is running out of ideas massively.
It's obviously the 2nd story in a raw weather liberator's been hijacked.
Last time I was home, we talked about whether Callie turning against the crew in the web was too similar to Gan turning against him in breakdown, and I said it.
No, no, it wasn't, it was different enough.
But now it's just like all the crew who weren't hijacked last week, I can just see you watching this and going, oh, come on.
It's like they get to take turns at who was on location and who stays behind and gets hijacked.
So, yeah, I think if they'd even mentioned that, maybe if the last episode had finished them saying, oh, I can't believe you got hijacked.
And then, um, you know, if Blake and Kelly got back and so I can't believe you let that happen, you know, you need to be a bit tighter on security around here.
And then everything happened this week.
But nobody even mentions it.
What did we say in our post-episode meeting last time, guys?
Yeah, hijacked.
The cast who do get to go on location gets a kind of a base under siege type story to use of Doctor Who parlance, you know, whether it's like, the savages or federation troops or whatever tend to be sort of after them are trying to get into where they are when they're on the ground.
And I think the kind of the, for me, the promise of the 1st few episodes, it's not really lived up to that.
The things that really interested me early on was that kind of really dystopian earth, which they haven't been back to.
I thought Blake's memory being erased was going to be a bigger deal, but it's just sort of quietly come back.
Yeah, they forgot about that.
And then just the ongoing mystery of the Liberator's origins is interesting to me, but it hasn't been addressed for a few episodes either.
But I really like Servoland and Travis, and I love that Travis's failures in previous episodes, have consequences, so that's sort of changed their dynamic here and stuff.
So I am I am interested in them.
I can see why all the gifts that I've ever seen on Twitter of Blake 7 have been Servoland and not Blake.
Which has always made me think she was like one of the main characters, if not the main character, but she's only been like 3 or 4 episodes so far, but he's by far one of the most interesting characters in it, I think.
Yeah, it's very interesting, I think, in this episode to see how the Travis and Surferland situation and relationship has changed over the course of the season.
So we basically got a reprise here of the 1st scene between Travis and Servoland.
And in Cyclocate Destroyer.
You've got Travis coming in and he's full of gusto.
He's not taking any of her nonsense.
He just wants to go and get the job done.
And then here, it's like the reverse.
Servoland is now completely and utterly in control.
She's got Travis sort of waiting for her to finish and he's just stood there subservient to all of that.
Yeah, and I think I think I have a, I may be coming in with a warmer appreciation of this episode than some.
It is largely because of that.
The 1st little scene with Servolan at the beginning where we're like, what is she?
she up to this time?
Because we haven't seen that much of her yet.
This is still very early days for her character.
And we see that she's clearly plotting something and not really in the federation's interests.
Whatever she's doing is in her own interest.
Oh, and it begins with her counselling a conference as well.
If you want to establish that someone is really, really evil.
Don't just have them massacring bad extras.
Have them being told that loads of people have come to your space station for a conference and you're just cancelling it because you can't be bothered.
Youve got something else to do instead.
Because I think that's...
That is the true sign of a dictatorial maniac.
And that big scene that suddenly comes that comes along in the middle, which really is, it's the 1st scene of the next episode in a way, isn't it?
But it does give the events of this episode more impetus.
Having that amazing long scene, where server, like you said, she's just toying with Travis, isn't she?
And she can just have him shot.
It's not, she's got a function for him, but she wants him to go into that function completely humiliated by her.
So he knows who's boss, although he still gets top billing ahead of her in the end credits.
That's the 70s for you.
Maybe that's why they replaced him.
But it's just a wonderful line where Travis just realises what she's like.
She's busy lounging on the sofa with a drink and completely and utterly calm and cool, and he just turns around and says, you're almost as ruthless as I am.
And I think that gives us sort of our 1st clear glimpse of what's to come in the show where she's going to really up her appearances and up her gain.
And she said, she responds, you underestimate me.
I wonder if she'd chosen the surgeon for the mission or space surgeon, sorry, because it was the, it was the guy that had saved Travis.
So it was like something else over him.
Yeah, that felt very much like that, that that was a calculated decision on her part to get one over on Travis and see how he would react to that and then she could judge where he is in her allegiances to her maybe.
Yeah, that was a really, really evil touch.
Yeah, and all delivered from a sofa.
It's just.
It also shows... how single-minded he is as well in his pursuit of Blake because there's that interchange between them where, you know, like they talk about how he'll be labelled as a deserter and then his family will go into exile.
She's like, is that a problem?
And he says, no, only Blake matters.
It's like, whoa, you know, like this person who saved your life.
Their family is going to exile.
You don't care.
You don't give a shit because all that matters is capturing Blake.
And this is Travis, the mass murdering butcher, who previously was shamed for being so brutal and destroying everything, and here he is now, so obsessed with Blake that he's prepared to be completely humiliated by Serverland or to, and there's this.
I think there's a real parallel that I don't think's accidental about these dominatrics power games being played between her and him and then we cut back to the planet and we have Avon finding out what it's like to have absolute power over somebody later on.
I think I think those 2 things are set up to sort of to reflect each other maybe.
Can you believe that that's when they did the video release of this?
I think they did, was it this and Aurac?
Yeah.
They cut the Travis and Serverland scene from this, as if it was padding.
When I think it's like, it's the mainly the main point of the episode.
You could really just cut most of deliverance that's not the stuff about Orac in a compilation video.
Good, but then we would lose some of the most amazing reverted to primitive action we've ever got.
But if, if, you know, if you're calling the compilation video Aurac, you don't really need.
Yeah, no, get your point, yeah.
I actually really like this episode, but it's been around the best...
Yeah, so let's talk about the action down on the planet.
We're very much inter nation land, aren't we here?
So we've got a planet that's reverted to primitivism after big war.
We've got a planet that's full of radiation, and we've got a very snowy quarry, which I'd say really looks fantastic, and we've got our 1st glimpse in the show of the brilliant extra Pat Gorman as well as chief primitive.
It doesn't even get a name.
Yeah, okay.
I go, I don't know.
This is Betchworth quarry, isn't it?
It is, yeah.
David Maloney's favourite quarry.
So there's a sign that says that as you approach it, I hope.
Like Genesis and Deadly Assassin.
Yes.
It doesn't exist anymore.
It's been filled.
It has.
It's a country park now.
It's interesting because we also have David Maloney behind the cameras on the location chute, because for some reason, Michael Lee Bryant wasn't available.
So David Maloney steps in and directs all those scenes down on the planet, Cephlon.
He brings quite an urgency to them all.
It's all quite dramatic and it feels quite pacy down there, despite, it's a lot of them wandering around trying to find the bullets and then escape from the primitives.
But I really like all that stuff.
What do you think, Mark?
Yeah, I think it looks great.
And those escape pods look really cool as well.
I like the way when they find the figure lying outside of it, who's fell out, that's a really good shot because you can see it in the disk.
Yeah, like you say, it's very terry nation in terms of radiation and mutations and things and all the space stuff, the space administrators, space surgeons, space command, all that kind of stuff.
Very nearly a poem, Mark.
There's a lot of rhymes in that.
That was really good.
Yeah, no female savages are noticed, so they've not got that long left, have they?
Well, do they have an arrangement with a wafty lady who we meet later?
So there's a line, isn't there?
Getting to me get where she talks about the, you know, they're only being maybe a 100 of her people left.
Where are they?
It seems to very much be behind that door in the rock face on her own.
There's no evidence that there's anyone else there.
Like a city.
It's just her and a rocket.
How long has she waited?
Was she a child when she was left behind?
Is she the next generation of people coming up?
Well, there's a line in there where she is, you know, she's descended from the keeper.
You know, like, you know, she's the guardian and she's descended from various other people who have overlooked it for generations.
It's a blinking you, you can miss it kind of.
Yeah, she has sort of chosen one deal.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, she was set up by Kachelle the Wise, wasn't she?
Or people were set up by Kachelle the Wise to sit and wait for someone to come and say the word and launch the ships off.
Yeah, but that's right. how?
Yeah, and a different hint of beneath the planet of the apes.
I immediately thought of when they found the rocket underground, which turned out not to be like an accent beneath the planet of the apes.
Spoilers, well.
It's a different type of rocket, but that way.
Yeah, these are quality science fiction tropes.
And you know, we're being harsh on Terry Nation saying he's just recycling his material.
We could say, this is him reaching the pinnacle of Terry Nation trophies.
He's been refining this all these years to sort of give us what is a very like definitive terry nation-y episode.
I agree with James, though.
And probably it's budget true restraints, but we could have done with seeing more of the civilisation that she came from because they say, if you missed that line about 100 of her people being left, you would think that she just sits in that room, gets doled up every single day in case the person arrives.
But obviously that's just kind of her day job and then she goes back to whatever civilisation.
Yeah, maybe they have shifts and it's like, oh, come on my shift.
Oh, God, I've got me careless.
Like, you do get the impression it's just her and the Shibogans, don't you?
Yeah, very much so.
I think Migat is a wonderful character, and I think she's beautifully played by Susan Farmer, who's just got enough wide-eyed innocence about her to make the part really, really good, and she looks so great in her floaty netting dress, just sat there all serene, and worshipping Paul Darrow.
He certainly would.
They're really playful with it together, aren't they?
There's the exactly the rapport that's needed for those scenes to work for him to be being arch and raising an eyebrow about how silly it kind of is, but also absolutely loving it, but also finding it tiresome and it really clicks, I think.
Yeah, and there's some wonderful lines about it both from him and from Villa, that makes 2 people who think you're wonderful, says Villa.
Yes.
And then Avon gets the bit later on where he says, well, now, you are hardly the stuff that gods are made of, which is just brilliant.
And you are, I suppose, apparently.
I thought the line was really interesting when Villa says you're enjoying this, aren't you?
And not sure whether he meant being worshipped or sort of the attentions of an attractive woman.
And he just says, probably, and it really reminded me of Tom Baker in City of Death, saying, you're a beautiful woman, probably.
Yes, of course.
Yeah, very a completely different way of being very cryptic and fascinating with the same word.
But there's lovely tenderness, Avon shows towards them, which he doesn't always show towards women, particularly as we've seen earlier in this series.
And it creates a really quite tender relationship between the 2 of them.
He's quite respectful of her belief in him, which is quite interesting to see, I think.
Yeah, he doesn't mock her, does he?
But he doesn't, I mean, well, he's humourous about the scenario, but he doesn't deride her.
That sort of, yeah.
There's one moment of it where she starts worshipping himself.
He says, oh, let's not start that again.
And then he sees how much he's upset her and then kind of softens.
It's actually, it's quite sweet. because he just holds a hand as well.
It doesn't draw a lot of attention to it, but in the control room scenes, they're holding hands.
Yeah, I haven't spotted that.
It feels like there's a scene missing, though, where they say goodbye, because you would imagine that she would want him to stay, or that he might even invite her along onto the Liberator, because they're nice to have somebody around that worships it.
It just cuts quite abruptly from that little self-deprecating line about, oh, you waited so long just for me.
And then they're back on the ship and I half expected it to be there with them.
She's potentially just been left on her own, on this planet now, surrounded by the savages.
Oh well, that's my job done.
Yeah, like the rocket's gone. have people are dying off.
They're probably going to, not going to finish that sense, that's horrible, but, you know, they may, they may have been killed by the savages because they know where the door is now.
And so, like, they're under, they're under him, kind of imminent threat. her and her invisible people.
It's not it's not a nice place to be left in.
No, even if they'd set up reinforced the defences or something that made it clear that these 100 people would be okay.
Yeah, just a line.
It does seem like, yeah, maybe something got forgotten.
Like Jenna?
Like Jenna.
Well, yes.
Here we are.
Not again.
We're back on the ship Off we go.
And then Gan says, oh, she was right behind me.
No, she wasn't.
You're lying.
Is that a trope?
think it might be.
It's very much a Blake 7 trope now, I think.
But at least they noticed that she's not there. pretty quickly this time.
So they're learning, but slowly.
They don't spend like a couple of hours sitting around drinking so much and then go, oh shit, where's Callie?
But it does lead to a great bit from Blake, where Avon says, we'll go down again and Blake, quiet and full of menace, just says, I think you better.
Yeah, it's like the one time I let you be in charge because I was busy doing filming for a different episode and what happens?
I don't know if that's a fact.
I was just a hunch I've got because because there weren't Blake and Jenna.
I think Blake and Jenna were much more involved last week.
So maybe so maybe there was a bit of a juggle there.
Yeah, they're the ones who went down to the planet last time.
It's like we can be filming in 2 separate quarries at the same time or something.
Well, Callie gets put on nursing duty again, like she did in breakdown.
It's just immediately assumed that female crew member is going to adopt that book.
Yeah, she's just pleased to have something to do.
But if nothing else, Jenna looks beautiful in all the location filming on this episode.
There's something about the furry hood of her thermal suit and working with the with her space anorak as well.
Yeah, she looks great.
She does.
And although she's not got a lot to do in this episode.
At least, you know, when we see her captured, she's trying to escape, and then she bungs a rock at him and is thwarted, so she doesn't sit there waiting to be rescued, which at least is good.
No.
And we get Avon Silver Parker as well, which I just love.
And mob one at those.
That's why he got mistaken for a god.
It's understandable really.
Yeah, he ditches his space anorak very, very good.
A film seems to be enjoying this episode. a lot.
And certainly more than Blake has seemed to enjoy episodes recently.
And I mean, you can read too much into it, but that's not entirely a 1000000 miles away from Paul Darrow and Karen Thomas's perspectives on the show, is it?
Because I think that he was already wanting to leave at this and they were like, no, two-year contract.
You're not going anywhere.
It's a huge success.
Whereas Paul Darrow was like, give me more.
Let me get my teeth into it.
And that seems to be Avon's approach to being on this mission too.
Although he's the reluctant rebel or at least the reluctant comrade.
He just, yeah, he basically likes being the boss, doesn't he?
But then he's got when they have to beam down again to look for Jenna.
There's a great shot of him on the teleport pad and he really looks like, oh shit, I forgot this up.
I'm never going to live this down.
That's the expression on his face as they beam down.
So do you think it's a case of Paul Darrow very much seizing any material?
Because for the last few episodes, really, he's been quite sidelined as a character, he hasn't had a great deal to do, and here he is centre stage really in this episode.
He's the lead character, I think, for this one, isn't he?
You can see him relishing everything from the running around the action.
He gets some really good action shots beating up the primitives, for instance.
I think there's a sense of him thinking, I can see how this would work if I was in charge.
Yeah, can suppose where his characters come from from the beginning of the series where he wouldn't really do anything unless there was something in it for him, whereas there's not really any discussion about whether he's going to go down and they're going to look for these survivors.
He just does it, doesn't he?
And then undertakes to rescue Jenna and then to help launch the deliverance rocket.
He's kind of getting more into this lifestyle now, isn't he?
and less interested in financial gain.
It seems like in this episode anyway.
Because it was only a couple of episodes ago, wasn't it, that he was very much considering ditching them all, although we don't know for certain whether he was double bluffing.
But at this point, this doesn't look like a guy who's with these people through sufferance.
The other big part of this plot is the mysterious Aurak.
We've got Ensor Jr. coming back from the Federation with an offer of 1000000 credits for this amazing thing called Aurak.
What do we think of Ensor Jr. and Tony Corner?
He goes on to become a borderline national treasure by marrying Pat Butcher in EastEnders, doesn't he?
He doesn't get to do as many exposition coma dialogue copyright fights or entirety.
Must give ambiguous clue.
It's one of those great moments And he does it.
And it's really nice how the bit when he takes Cali hostage.
Oh, there's always one particularly graceful moment for her.
But he plays it, really believably of someone who does not want to be doing that, but is desperate, and there's a nice dynamic between him and Blake, because that's the kind of thing that Blake always faces, how nasty can I be in order to ensure that the greater good is achieved?
And now Blake's faced with someone who's doing exactly that on the on the deck of his own ship. 100000000 credit sounds like a lot, doesn't it?
But we don't really know what the credit is.
Yeah, what's the credit to pound exchange rate?
Yeah. sandwich costs, for example, in...
Well, there's no sandwich. just a protein pill.
It's a bit of a doctor evil moment, isn't it?
It's like a 1000000 credits?
1000000 credit.
A 1000000000 dollars.
There's several moments where Servolan says to Travis.
I need to get Blake and Orak.
And I was just thinking, if I didn't know what Orak was, what I think she was saying, I need to get Blake, Andor.
Yeah.
Who's rat?
I was overthinking it at that point.
Or possibly underthinking.
I don't know what Aurac is.
Well, spoilers.
To find out.
In next week.
All right.
Does what it says on the tin.
Or perhaps bots.
But yeah, they're obviously selling this as something big that's going to change everything.
And basically, it's just a weird name at this point.
But yeah, I really like Ensor and doing anything for his for his dad and the micro power cells that hum every time you open the box, getting rid of a bit more power each time.
So they're going to be useless by the time they get there.
They're open every 5 minutes just to remind us that they're power cells.
Micro power cells in a pack larger than a lunchbox.
And et cetera.
There's a great moment where Callie is tending him with his with her complete lack of nursing skills, but she's got her helpful telepathy skills.
So when he's writhing and screaming in pain, she turns to Blake and goes, he's in a great deal of pain. just like to go.
No shit, mind reader.
But he did not.
She could have freaked him out though during the season, didn't she, with putting some messages.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Yeah.
It's more conscient speaking.
Put the gun down.
Yeah, let the nice lady go.
I don't know if she can do other voices, you know, the way you can, can you do that with celebrity?
It's underexplored, folks.
But she has got the most wonderful little scene of sitting there with her headphones on when, yeah, Blake and Blake sat there looking bored with his head in his hands and Callie's got her headphones and face mask on, grooving away to her space jazz while waiting for a call to rush to the teleport to beam them back up again.
That prop has been shared round the whole cast by now.
So we've seen it in episode one when the guard in the way back has got it and then Serverland's had it, hasn't she?
And now he's got it.
They've all got their own space Spotify accounts, haven't they?
I bet the aurons get in trouble for sharing their login details and telepathically sharing music with each other.
They probably get banned from Spotify.
Telepathic copyright infringement.
At least they were waiting in the teleport room, though, because it normally seems a lot of these have his potluck, isn't it?
If people are in trouble on the plants, whether anybody's here can call for help.
Yeah.
We've transported down into a dangerous situation.
What are you gonna do now?
Oh, I think I might get the toilet.
Do my hair.
Read a book on the flight deck.
Yeah, I'm going to go sit in the space parlour.
That's a room we haven't seen yet, but that's where I like to go and read.
And I look, whenever someone's on the bridge and a communicator call comes through, it's always on that control deck that's on the other side of the bridge.
So someone has to excitedly run across the bridge and leap on it and press the button just to answer the phone basically.
In this episode, it just sometimes the way that it's shot just makes me notice again, what a big set that bridge really is.
That's a big bit of studio.
A gorgeously impractical set.
But yeah, at this point, we still don't know whether the people who built it were actually octopuses or something. just they just have a strange ponchant for human-sized furniture.
Mystical arms, so they could reach one buttons that are on the side.
Maybe had they had 7 bodies. 45 hands.
I fear we may be overselling this.
So we do get our other top Blake 7 trope, don't we, of the liberator being forced to be out of orbit when they need to teleport back up in an emergency.
This is a good standby to make the plot a bit more urgent.
It's like those days when you didn't have mobile phones and you had to arrange to meet someone at a time at a place.
And if they weren't there, you would just, I didn't know, maybe they're dead.
Maybe they're just 10 minutes late.
You just didn't know.
The ending scene of this.
Well, I don't know.
It's good and then weird at the same time, you know what I mean?
You just get that final end shot.
After the fantastic conversation between Blake and Avon about, you know, how did it, have you ever been a god?
How did it feel?
And, uh, oh, no, hang on.
I did my blake quote in my Avon voice.
That was my Avon voice, believe it or not.
Blake saying, how did it feel?
and I'm going, don't you know?
And Blake cutting back with yes, each one of those is a nice twisty riposte on what you might have expected them to say.
And then it just ends with with Abel sort of meandering off in the background out of shots.
And I'm saying, now let's try and save Ensor's life.
And Jenny goes, okay, speed, standard by 6.
Crash into end credits.
Slashing my things. could go into 3rd gear, Jenna.
You've got to rescue this, this bloke's waiting to be rescued in this all powerful something or other.
Does Blake mean that the rest of the crew treat him like a god?
Because everyone on earth thinks it's a paedophile, don't they?
Well, people do have very black and white opinions, don't they?
It's like 11 thing or the other.
I think he means from back in the day before all those allegations came out and were faked about him.
So I took it, and this was only my 1st reaction, was just taking it as him referring back to the old days when he was seen as the superhero of the resistance.
But yeah, I hadn't thought of that, that it could just mean that it could just mean the crew too, couldn't it?
yeah I took it as Blake thinking about the legends that are building up and the myths building up around him already that have been mentioned in Project Avalon.
So maybe he's sort of aware of how he's becoming a figurehead to the repressed masses of the federation.
That's how I interpreted it too.
You know, that works.
I get it.
Yeah.
But again, it's sort of open to interpretation and Blake's almost coy.
I don't like the responsibility either is quite interesting.
It's a not quite the reaction you'd expect from Blake.
Yeah, yeah. when they 1st beam down, when Avon leads the away party, and he just immediately says, like, Jenna, you take Gan.
Find the rock, find a door or something, but they go off and they find the door in the rock, he doesn't say that to him.
That's what they didn't do.
But, um, but it's like there's no picking of tea. there's no picking of teams.
He's not going to say, Jenno, who do you want?
He's like, I'm not having Gan.
Jenna, you take gas.
And at 1st and I laughed at that as a, oh, poor gan, he's the one who always gets picked last.
But then, actually, in this, in this episode, Gan gets quite, it's quite, it turns out to be one of his most active episodes apart from the one where he was the centre of attention, but unconscious through most of it, a couple of weeks ago.
Maybe he was taking revenge by leaving Jenna behind.
You all treat me like shit.
I'm just going to leave her behind.
Yeah, this starts to look like a conspiracy.
And I don't think he's really got a limiter anyway.
I don't know what that's all about because he's like, there's a, it's just an excuse to be able to hit people sometimes and to be able to get out of having to fight at other times.
Oh, sorry, I would join him.
I've got a limiter.
He says this week, doesn't he?
There's a really quick line where he specifies that the limiter stops him from being able to kill.
So then you can go and have the, has the big fight with all of the wild Britons outside of the Roman civilisation.
Because he gets well into that fight, doesn't he?
He does, yeah.
There's a point, isn't there?
Where there are 3 or 4 of them all surrounding him.
And then his arms just sort of whack out and he's whacked 2 of them away from him.
Yeah, he's back into back into agro mode.
Definitely.
No sign of a migraine today.
No, but they fixed him now, haven't they?
Oh, that's true.
That's true, yeah.
But there's also a nice couple of moments between Gan and Villa that are quite sort of warm and sort of friendly, particularly always like the minute where Gan says, oh, I was beginning to enjoy myself out there. and Billa, turns around and says, you're almost as mad as I am, aren't you, Billa?
No, he doesn't.
He says, you're almost as mad as me, Gat.
Oh, yes.
It's Andorak again, isn't it?
Yeah, it's me again.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, no, I, because I, my entire life until watching it tonight in preparation.
I had thought, he said, you're almost as mad as me, Gan, but he actually says me, Gan.
I was like, ooh, bitch.
Wow, right.
Yeah, wonderful lied when they get into the bunker.
And Gan's like, oh, she seems to be on our side.
And Villa says, yes, but the woman's mad.
Clearly, clearly.
I thought the line was interesting when they, when they, uh, they're going to beam the injured man up and they talk about teleport stress, um, because, I know, Pete, you've mentioned this on a previous one I was on about the, how alarming it must look to other people, things to be teleported.
Because they never mentioned that before.
They, that might sound like it's, it's painful or something, but Julian Glover thought it was all right, didn't he?
Yeah, maybe well, maybe he got a bit of a thrill from it.
Yeah, to figure out.
Yeah, with different people, it faced him.
But yeah, that was an interesting little element of extra peril to just drop in there, wasn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah, and I think it's something that they refer to, again, in the series sort of later on that if you're really badly injured, you can't teleport because you're going to get sort of even worse.
And we've never had that, so far as I know, wiser ones can correct me, but I don't think there's ever a Blake's 7 episode about teleportomists, perhaps someone coming back with 2 heads or something, that Star Trek staple.
Is it almost like they actually don't correct me because it might be a spoiler.
So what's up ahead, but so far as I know, it's as if they've put, oh, let's not do that.
They always do that on Star Trek.
Yeah, I don't think that storyline they go for.
Yeah, yeah, it's just a door, isn't it?
It's never used as the mechanics of it aren't over in the centre of a story in that way.
Just having access to being able to get at it is always the plot thing.
Yeah.
Is then there one, but we won't talk about that.
Oh, okay.
Well, look forward to that, there is.
I might be misremembering.
We get the 1st of one of my favourite things that I always associate from Blake 7 from when I 1st saw it of a mysterious door in a rock face.
We get lots of those coming up as well.
And I think this is our 1st one.
I was channelling that a minute ago when I said that Avon told them to go and find a door in the wrong face.
I didn't even know that that was going to be a thing, but clearly the vibes are already going out of it.
Roy from EastEnders, Ensor, was in colony in space as well, wasn't he?
Which had a very nice bit of rock in a cliff face in a quarry action.
Enlightenment.
And the Crusade.
Oh, yes, of course.
He's very ours.
Very hours.
Sadly, I don't get to see more of his very pretty friend who is in the introductory sequence.
Marriott, wasn't it?
I wonder what hotel.
I wonder what Hotel Terry Nation was staying at on a place while he was watching this episode.
Oh, if I just change a couple of the letters. yeah Make it more spicy.
Space marriage.
No, but he's very cute, but also but also the act but also good.
Yeah, he's in only in a short bit of it, and the 2 of them have some very nice exposition, and, you know, lines like, we've enjoyed 30 odd years of independence, uh, of, of very info dumpy, but they managed to make it sound like the chat of 2 people stuck in a catch altogether.
Yeah, I, I really like the fact that he's just bored by Ensor's explanation of the race that failed to primitivism and he's just there for, uh, just sort of almost be in there, rolling his eyes, thinking, Oh God, when are we getting to Aristo?
Oh, God, it's a terry nation planet.
That's a strange thing though, right?
Because he's not allowed to know where they're going.
But Servolan already knows.
Yeah, yeah.
Why, yeah, why does she know?
But the person she sent not know.
What's the point of that?
Her 1st scene gave me the impression that this was going to be a story about us finding out how it was that Servoland knew about this and had arranged for all this and all of that.
And what we sort of do in the sense that, you know, it all moves forwards, but the story itself wasn't.
And then they go and find out what serverland's up to.
That's obviously paving the way.
Yeah, it does feel like a bit of poor writing that she knows where they are.
So why doesn't she go in a faster ship and just get there 1st and kill Ensor and steal Aurak, whatever it is?
Because she obviously has an idea of where they're going to be going.
So, yeah, it doesn't quite come off, does it?
Unless the thing that I hadn't thought of until you guys mentioned it.
The, um, that this is, uh, the hop, could the whole thing be, uh, Servilon saying it up as the test for Travis. of having his surgeon killed, 2 birds with one stone.
She both wants to deal with the risk of Aurak being sold before she gets it.
And at the same time, put Travis through this excruciating test to ensure that his whatever morality or he had is now completely malleable to her needs.
I think also maybe it's a case of she just really enjoys kind of, evil plan.
You could, like, go through the proper channels and negotiate with this person, get approval to get the 100000000 credit.
You could just go straight ahead and invade the planet.
No, let the little old man slowly die in pain and then you'll come later on and pick things up after he's died horribly.
That's a very servilan plan.
Yeah, and also there's a feeling of her grabbing whatever she can to secure her position and grasp more power.
So she obviously thinks Aurak is going to be a key to this.
Yeah, she is not there for the glory of the Federation, is she?
She is there for the glory.
She is the glory of the Federation.
Yes.
They could have put a lion in to say that when the ship came to pick Mario up, they checked the flight recorder or something, they hacked into the flight recorder and they found out where it had come from, couldn't they?
But yeah, as it stands, it doesn't seem to make sense.
It's the speed and lack of time and resources that went into this 1st series really starting to show.
I think.
It's like there are plot holes, left, right, and centre, because nation was delivering half scripts or like the 1st draft of a script and letting Boucher rewrite them and there's nothing bad about that.
Like, I said this last week.
The more Boucher there is in Blake 7 episode, the better.
But because of the troubled genesis of this show and the lack of resources, the fact that it being made on the budget of Zed cars, it does really start to show in the tightness of the scripts.
And the logic of the plot.
It does feel very much like draft one and this will do.
We can make this.
That's fine.
No one's going to think about it too hard.
It's going to be on once and that's it.
The fools, the man.
We're never going to let go.
We're never gonna stop watching it and enjoying it.
Yeah.
And I mean, give it, you know, this is this is the 12th episode of a 13 episode series that's come out of literally come out of nowhere and made this huge impression and become this huge rating of success.
The episode 12 has this much steam still to it, is a huge compliment, I think, still to the crew making it, because you would think there was the risk that they would just be doing episodes of them sitting around talking by this point in one on their one large set.
Wait, since all next year. joker.
But I mean, brilliantly, they're reusing the big full ship that they built for Time Squad.
So they're using it again, but that also makes it feel like this is a consistent universe, that this is a kind of ship that they would be using.
So it's sort of using your very expensive props from earlier on, again, in an interesting way.
Yeah, and there's a nice bit, really nice bit of camera work in that very 1st shot of it as the camera sort of goes around an angle and then you get a nice little bit of 3D camera movement as the camera sort of pivots as it zooms in.
It's just makes it all a little bit more real.
Yeah, and considering that's a fairly complex shop because you've got to, you've got the CSO backgrounds of space behind them as well.
That worked quite effectively.
It's, again, Michael Lee Bryant being brilliant with very limited resources in the studio.
His studio scenes are always seemed to be a cut above everyone else's throughout the season.
It made me think that little spaceship's a little bit better than Liberator as well because it's got Windows on the Liberator.
Whenever Zen craps out, they just can't see anything, can they?
They could bump into anything.
It's a window.
It's not exactly where they're going.
It's a great scene.
I think it's in, is it in breakdown?
where he refuses to fly through the spatial anomaly and turns off the main screen and they're like, oh, what will we do?
And then they go, turn on the TV in the corner.
Yeah, it's amazing how many different screens there are in the liberator.
I thought the graphics were a little bit better in this episode on the little screen on Serverland's desk and some of the other things, the um, of the, the ship spiralling in the, the atmosphere of Cephlon.
A lot of the graphics are just sort of lights, aren't they?
One light moving across the screen after another.
But they just looked a bit more detailed in this one.
Yeah, and there's a great shot, isn't there?
Where you see the 2 of life capsules eject sort of on the graphical display and then see them tumbling down to the planet as well. where you've got the 3 pursuit chips and things.
They lack that amount of definition, I think, don't they?
Yeah, and I wonder if that's just the affects people getting more skilled and developing literally learning new tricks as they go along to make it make it better.
There's a couple of nice model shots again, as well, of the ship exploding, which looks really, really good.
And the 2 escape pods tumbling down into the atmosphere of the planet, which look really good.
And you're supposed to land, according to Jenna, without a scratch.
Well, one of the guys was already dead and the other guy didn't close the latch properly.
Oh, that'll be it.
Yeah, that'll be it.
Enso has one of my personal sci-fi tropes in my head, which happens a lot in various sci-fi things.
When he finally meets his end at the end.
It's like he's there doing a little bit, one bit more exposition, and then he just goes, and then Blake just immediately goes, he's dead.
It's like, he was speaking 2 seconds ago.
You cannot seriously have checked all his vital life size.
It's exactly, the Solurian Doctor Who and the Silurians is one of my favourite moments of that.
The guy comes running up to Liz Shaw.
I've got the playing.
It's a terrible, and he falls down, and she just immediately, he hasn't stopped moving, and she goes, he's dead.
It's like no point.
Come on, move on, move on with the plot.
Must complete last life.
He's giving us a masterclass there in how this works.
How do you all feel about this episode?
This is one I'm just really fond of.
It's nothing brilliant.
It's not outstanding.
But I just really like it.
What do you think, Mark?
I like, yeah, like you say, a lot of the designer really like in the direction's really good.
I like that it's part, it feels like more part of an ongoing narrative than some of the more standalone ones.
So bringing back Servolan and Travis and seeing that they've actually had character development for Millie in the series, I really like, and obviously setting up the season finale as well.
So there's ongoing elements that you're going to keep you watching to tune in next week and find out what Aurak is.
It's like they've started the A plot from next week in the B plot of this week.
Yeah, which works really well.
Yeah, and it's strange they weren't going to call it part one and part two. although generally it's seen that way, because tall intents and purposes, it is. it overlap that much.
But they still they still kept it separate.
But I wonder to what extent viewers at the time.
We're getting used to the idea that you got, oh, right, it's going to carry on next week.
I thought this was just going to be a, you know, monster of the week, baddy of the week, rebels of the week episode.
The teacher showing us that Blake 7 doesn't, doesn't only do that.
It is a developing narrative.
Because the 3 parts were like that, weren't they?
I like that about it.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it started in my head.
I always think of those as one movie When we were all younger.
The like the 1st VHS copy you got of this was the season premiere was all sort of mashed together in one long video with 4 different episodes on it, which were trimmed down.
So this one was released, wasn't it, as Aurac, with deliverance, Aurac, and Redemption, altogether, as 11 long story.
Yeah, yeah, it flows really naturally that way, doesn't it?
The 2 episodes were repeated in a feature-length edited version at Christmas this year.
So Deliverance and Aurac were put together as 11 episode by the BBC and then shown before series 2 Sorry, series B arrives on BBC One.
Season B?
No, sorry, no.
Hang on.
No, that's wrong.
I'm getting it wrong now.
Repeats are an interesting thing because in my head, and I think I might have said in the back in the 1st episode talking about, and I was like, oh, yeah, I used to catch the repeats because they were always repeating it, weren't they?
And actually, they didn't do that many, did they?
I've only looked it up more recently on BBC Genome.
But yeah, like you say, they said, this is a sort of, this with Aurek as a movie prelude to the, the start of the next season.
And then I think it was only season 3 that got an almost complete repeat over the summer of June 81, running up to they showed 8 of the 13 episodes.
And that's what I could remember seeing repeated because there's a thing that happens at the end of the last episode of series 3 that I remember very vividly having seen twice and being confused like, why is this happening again?
I've already seen this. and then realising it was a repeat.
Basically, I'm just, it's just a general observation, that just has a much stronger hold in the public consciousness than I would have expected for something that wasn't really being endlessly rerun at the weekends and stuff like that, which in my, in my head.
I thought it had a bit more of that.
It's interesting, isn't it?
It doesn't get the repeats that Doctor Who gets each year.
So I think one of the other episodes has touched on this Doctor Who gets 2 complete stories repeated in the summer.
But Blake 7 generally is just on once, particularly in the case of season B. That's it.
None of that is shown ever again by the BBC.
That's really weird.
Yeah, that's just...
I find amusing listening to talking about 2 repeats. experience is completely... were spoiled.
We were spoiled.
They used to strip it Monday, Monday to Thursday or Monday to Friday. in the afternoons before the goodies.
Wow.
Yeah.
See, this is what we used to dream of here in the UK.
Oh, if I was in Australia, I could be watching Blake 7 right now.
Oh, they didn't do that at Blake 7.
Just told you who.
Doctor Who.
Okay.
No, Blake 7 was repeated quite a lot.
I believe.
But this is why I've never seen it as well because it's just been kind of lack of opportunity, really, haven't you?
A lot of people, I know, really rate it.
I've just never, it's just never been on.
I've had to, you know, kind of buy the DVD basically.
Brick box, which is a recent development as well.
But it's I've never seen it repeated on any of the sort of sky channels or BBC or anything like that. to tune in.
Yeah, it had a run in the 90s, didn't it?
I think on UK gold, but that was a couple of times, but not often.
Yeah, and I guess it's always going to have Doctor Who sort of looming over it, isn't it?
Where the TV guy when a TV executive sits down and says, well, let's put on something from the 70s, the 1st I'm talking in the 90s here, the 1st thing that they would get pressurised to do would be Doctor Who.
And because there was so much demand to have that back on again.
And I guess it maybe Blake 7 just suffered by being number 2 on the list of most requested 70s things to be repeated perhaps.
The only thing I was going to say was, and don't tell me whether I'm right or not, is I was going to guess that Aurak is a virus.
Well, probably is terrination, again, a space virus, not just virus, because that's kind of terrination trope, isn't it?
But not one that I've seen yet.
You could be right and you could be wrong.
Interesting.
But I'm not gonna tell you.
You feel so, yeah.
Yeah you'll find out next week.
Well, that was deliverance, and I hope we've delivered well on our comments on this episode.
Join us next week when we'll find out whether Aurak really is worth 1000000 credits.
I've been psy.
I was James.
That was Mark.
I've done my best to be Pete, and we hope you'll join us next week.
Thanks very much, everyone.
Bye.
Bye bye.
Ta-ra.
Bye.
Switching to manual.
Maximum power on all drives.
Maximal power.